This film did a good job of following the excellent book it was based off of. The movie begins with the sale of little Chiyo and her sister to a geisha house in Kyoto. The are immediately separated and the beautiful, blue-eyed Chiyo is “chosen” to become a geisha. She becomes the object of another geisha’s jealously, and is framed for several crimes committed around the geisha. Lonely and mistreated, Chiyo is forced to be a slave at the geisha house instead of training to become a geisha, until one day when legendary geisha Mameha takes her under her wings and shows her the art of becoming a geisha.
Rating: ***+